If you're receiving this letter, it means you've been supporting Knowmore.org and our mission of corporate reform for some time now, and have probably found yourself thinking those four words at least a few times in the past year. So, before we get to the purpose of this appeal, let's take a moment to restate who we are by addressing the most popular fiction of the recent global financial meltdown.

"No one could have seen this coming."

Since 2005, Knowmore.org and its supporters have been pointing out the failures and dangers of unchecked corporate power.

* Before companies like Citigroup, Inc., AIG, Bear Stearns, and GM 'became toxic', we were shouting from the rooftop about their fundamental instability, unethical policies, and exploitative and predatory practices.

* Before the bail outs--and before insurance companies and pharmaceuticals began the fight against the current push for health care reform--Knowmore.org was sounding the alarm about corporate control of the political process.

* Before the collapse of the US job market and soaring unemployment, Knowmore.org was maintaining that the reckless 'race to the bottom' of companies like Wal-Mart and Target would decimate America's manufacturing base and local businesses.

Unfortunately, there's no satisfaction in being vindicated by disaster. As millions of people lose their livelihood, health, security, and often their basic human rights, there's no time for "I told you so."

Instead, Knowmore.org has taken the current economic crisis as a powerful reaffirmation of our goals, and an elevation of the threat level; It has never been more important that there be a strong voice against corporate control, and a citizen and consumer driven source of information like Knowmore.org.

We are writing this letter to ask that you support the outlet that saw it coming, and didn't shy away from its responsibility to tell you so.

Knowmore.org's database has reached an incredible size in the past two years, and we're proud to finally announce that we are within inches of our longtime goal: a Knowmore.org entry for each of the Global Fortune 500. The information entered into the database by our interns and volunteers is currently in the process of being verified and formatted by the system administrators. We're now maintaining entries for more than 700 companies, and tens of thousands of consumer brands and subsidiaries.

We're equally excited by the success of our Firefox extension, which is now being used by more than 3,000 users.

The funds now being raised will go toward the development of mobile applications in 2010. Now that the database is substantial, our goal is to get our crucial information into the hands of consumers at the point of sale. Imagine grocery shopping with a Knowmore app by your side, or eventually being able to scan a barcode and get a Knowmore rating.

Also planned for this year are the development of street team packs, curriculum and packages for teachers who want to bring Knowmore into the classroom, and the hiring of a publicity firm to increase visibility. With the Fortune 500 project complete, we feel confident that the site will soon be ready for its most massive publicity push ever.

We realize pockets are tight, and we're feeling the pinch as well. Please consider giving whatever you can. If you're too strapped to donate, or if you want to help further, consider editing some Knowmore entries, or signing up for the street team. Send emails to Bernard@Knowmore.org for inquiries as to how you can help.

We're setting the goal high this year. We'll be requiring hundreds of hours from our developers and administrators, and we'll need some capital to put these ideas into motion.

We've raised or received commitments for $1500 to date. Can you help us raise the rest?

Please pass this on, and consider donating in someone's name as a gift during the holiday season.

Best wishes to all of us in the year ahead

Stay on the battlefield,

B. Dolan & The Knowmore Staff

----

Knowmore, Inc. is a registered, tax exempt 501 (c) 3 non profit organization. Any and all donations are tax deductible!!

If you'd like to send a donation in the mail, please send it to the address below:

Knowmore.org
PO BOX 854
Glendale, RI 02826

Wed Nov 04, 2009 2:45 pm

dri

Joined: 16 Mar 2003
Posts: 1177
Location: minneapolis

any updates on the street teams?

Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:34 pm

b. dolanFBI agent

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 5705

I recently got an email from a volunteer who I'm feeling good about, who I'm planning to ask to spearhead the creation of the street team packs.

We've learned from a few mistakes in this department, and I know what will need to be done in order to get these together.

Hopefully we can get the images we need for production setup within the next two months, raise the money we need to manufacture items through this fundraiser, and have street team packs avaliable by January. You can hold me to that deadline.

I realize a lot of folks are anxious to get started with the street team stuff. It's just a matter of making sure we provide them with the right tools and have the right site waiting for people when they get there.

Right now we're spending a lot of time formatting our 'Behind the Logos' page. We've added a ton of companies in the past year, so I'm making my way through them all, putting logos and ratings in, and checking and beefing up the info on all these pages.

I would imagine college towns would be great places to hit for street teams but that is only a random guess. Tax deductible? I should quit smoking and then send the money saved. It would be like a sweet bonus for quitting smoking AND I could be happy with myself for donating to a decent cause at the same time. Hmmm...

Wed Nov 04, 2009 5:36 pm

Jared Paul

Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 3719
Location: www.PrayersForAtheists.org

Word! I'll be forwarding this from all our channels asap.

I bet a bunch of SDS'ers would be down for this...

Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:12 pm

AP1732

Joined: 16 Dec 2007
Posts: 164

Shouldn't the title be "Don't say 'we didn't tell you so'"...am I missing something?

I do have one critque of knowmore. I used knowmore for the first time last night to research Nike for a class project. Anyway, over half the links I clicked on, did not work. Very disapointing; I didn't get through the entire article on Nike because I couldn't verify the sources.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:40 pm

b. dolanFBI agent

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 5705

AP -

You're right about the Nike page. It's one of a few profiles that are left over from the previous site, before the wiki moved. As a result, some of the links have gone dead. The one that don't work are red on that page, and the ones that do are in blue.

That article will need to be cleaned up though.

However, the summary style still gives an accurate record and overview of Nike's history, and gives the broad details of each item.

In general we've switched from this style of page, also. Because of the problems with dead links, we no longer link outside the site as much. Whenever possible, we aim to copy the entire source article into Knowmore, for this very reason.

We're hoping Knowmore can keep links from going dead, in the long run, and function as an archive for the articles it links to.

i dont have social networking but i will send a mass email and hand some print-outs, out.

Sat Dec 12, 2009 12:23 pm

Mark in Minnesota

Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2053
Location: Saint Louis Park, MN

I dug up the Recent Changes link for Knowmore and was dismayed to see that in the last 30 days every single edit to the site has been spam. For example, the page for Target Corporation is slowly filling up with links for fake jewelry, SEO optimization, cheap web hosting, etc.

Some of the other edits, particularly those on User Talk pages, are just blatant links to malware etc.

An open-login Wiki can't survive without fairly vigilant curation. I'm not volunteering to do it or anything, so much as wondering aloud if the project is dead.

Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:17 pm

Mark in Minnesota

Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2053
Location: Saint Louis Park, MN

Since July 19th we have seen among other things:
- An act of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising Alaska fishing trips and swim goggles.
- Two acts of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising link building services.
- An act of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising business blog services.
- Several new pages solely to advertise luxury timepiece brands.
- Assorted edits to user pages mostly advertising online pharmacy stores.
- An act of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising business proposal writing services.
- Several acts of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising essay writing services.
- An act of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising video submission services.
- An act of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising statistics homework services.
- An act of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising gold by the ounce.
- An act of vandalism replacing several paragraphs of real discussion about Target Corporation with the sentence "Very attractive and informative blog." Specifically removed were the sections on Criticisms, Workers Rights, Political Contributions, and General Business Practices; left intact were the sections on Praise and on Brand Subsidiaries.
- Creation of a template and several new company pages describing online pharmacies.
- An act of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising iPhone camera apps.
- An act of vandalism on Target Corporation's page advertising services for gifted children.

Two serious problems here new since my last audit:
1. The vandals aren't just liberally salting Knowmore with advertisements for seedy businesses, they're deleting legitimate content that criticizes major corporations.
2. The more this kind of thing happens, the lower Knowmore pages will fall in Google search results; eventually Google will delist Knowmore entirely as a link farm.

Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:34 pm

Woland

Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Posts: 156
Location: Finland

I haven't been following Knowmore's updates at all, but is the project dead? That's pretty much what I gather from Mark's posts.

Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:37 am

Sage FrancisSelf Fighteous

Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 21671

No, it's alive and well. B. Dolan will be back to explain more.

Personally, I'd love the assistance of Mark from Minnesota in the steps we're taking to evolve and adapt to the new climate of the internets. I know he said that he already said that he's not volunteering his time or talent to our cause, but having someone of his ilk on board would truly be appreciated.

Sat Oct 29, 2011 10:55 pm

Jump to:

Goto page 1, 2Next
All times are GMT - 6 Hours. The time now is Tue Mar 31, 2015 4:06 pm